Yoga Teacher Training (YTT)

Introduction

In-Depth Yoga Education - Discover the Yoga Teacher Within!

Here at TAYS, we are dedicated to the ongoing professional and personal development of yoga teachers through in-depth yoga education. Yoga education involves both a careful study of yoga practices from eastern and western perspectives as well as the practical application of theories and teaching methodology presented. We have designed our program to facilitate your growth as a teacher in a way that informs your teaching and also empowers your independence as a yoga educator.

Most yoga studios and fitness facilities require yoga teachers to have a basic 200 hour training from a registered yoga school. When you graduate from TAYS' 200 hour YTT, you will have the skills required to develop, structure and teach public yoga classes. Our program meets and exceeds these requirements outlined by Yoga Alliance. With the popularity of yoga in the west, and the number of teachers in training, industry standards have increased. The TAYS YTT has grown and changed to meet these needs and continues to offer exceptional training programs beyond the 200 hour level. Both our 200 and 500 hour programs are registered with Yoga Alliance.

The TAYS 500 hour program consists of two segments. The first segment is the 200 hour foundation program followed by an additional 300 hours. These first 200 hours can be achieved through attending our "10 weekends program" (200 hour YTT) based in Halifax.

Our backgrounds in Physiotherapy, Occupational therapy, Kinesiology, Psychology and Osteopathic Studies help to keep our program focused and clear. With these skills and this knowledge base we stand out from other Yoga Teacher Training programs. Our YTT teachers Mike Munro, Maxine Jeffrey and Cléo Burke each have different educational backgrounds, yoga and life experience and skill-set. A frequent comment following our teacher training weekends is about the appreciation of our teachers and how we all work together to make the program informative and complete. Our program is a highly regarded program that graduates excellent yoga teachers with the skills, confidence and knowledge to teach yoga.

If you would like some reading suggestions prior to or during your TAYS' YTT.

For detailed information on our Professional Level, 500 Hour program click here.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q. Is your Yin/Restore weekend a "certification training"?

A. We can provide you a certificate regarding your hours in the training. You will feel ready to offer Yin classes following the weekend course. You will also feel ready to offer yoga to those needing more props, modifications and wanting a more "therapeutic style".

The whole training is part of our YTT 500 hour program. In itself, the Yin / Restore training is not a certification course. With completion of the other parts of the 500 hours you would gain the designation of a "Professional Yoga Teacher" being certified at the 500 hour level. If you are are currently taking a 200 hour YTT program you would still have those hours and the remainder of our extra 300 hours to complete to gain this designation.

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Q. How is your teacher training program different than other YTT programs offered?

We at TAYS, teach teachers how to teach right from the start, day one. You will also learn how to develop classes, based on themes or poses. We teach people how to sequence a class to a target pose (i.e. full wheel) or a general category of poses (deep backbends) to include the right kind of conditioning (or warm up) poses to prepare the required areas of the body and then how to cool down the body and bring the body back into balance.

People graduate from TAYS’ 200 hour level with skill and confidence in physical assisting poses. We teach basic assists for most poses in the 200 hour level and focus on more in-depth assists and a greater variety of assists in TAYS’ 500 hour level.

Our training includes many modifications and options for props allowing for different bodies with different abilities.

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Q. It says on the website that we graduate as Hatha Vinyasa Yoga Teachers. Can you explain what that means?

"Hatha Yoga" is an umbrella term that describes many styles of yoga. You will find that our style of yoga, Hatha Vinyasa, can be a gentle flow for beginners or seniors or can incorporate more of a workout. Vinyasa is a flowing style of yoga that incorporates alignment and safety therefore allowing people to be able to maintain a yoga practice throughout their lives without being at unnecessary risk for injury. Through our Yoga Teacher Training and through our studio (TAYS) students know and learn how to modify the postures at various times and stages of their lives to be able to continue this yoga journey throughout their lives.

Our backgrounds in Occupational therapy, Physiotherapy, Kinesiology and now Osteopathy as well as our backgrounds with Iyengar, Ashtanga, Baptiste and Bikram Yoga and developmental yoga provide the balanced practice from which everyone can enjoy and benefit.

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Q. Are we going to be taught how to lead a class?

Yes. You will be very comfortable with teaching a beginner to intermediate level class by the end of the program. Practice teaching sessions will start on day one. You will ease into teaching early on and have a lot of practice and experience in this area. You will learn how to sequence a class and you will learn how to progress and develop your teaching to help your students learn optimally.

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Q. Are we going to be given information regarding opening a yoga studio?

Yes one of the talks during the YTT will be about "where to go from here", target populations, how to advertise, how to open a studio, etc.

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Q. Will the training teach us to assist and adjust students in poses?

Absolutely. We pride ourselves on this. You will gain a lot of hands on experience with adjusting and "seeing" your students. The 200 hour YTT starts students off gradually and comfortably so that you can see your students and learn basic assists for everyone. But we go beyond these standard assists and teach you skillful and artful hands-on techniques. Our 500 hour YTT contains more advanced courses in this area, if you choose to continue with our trainings.

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Q. Under the 200 hour month-long training in July, we have a led class between in the early morning hours; is this for meditation and breathing ?

This is a led asana class. Various teachers will be teaching this each morning. Depending on who teaches (Mike, Maxine or Cléo) you will get a different experiences and obtain different ideas on how to teach the poses. Each of our teachers offers various foundation, breath and movement cues, various ideas in how to use props or how to use pacing and rhythm and so on. The possibilities are endless and each experience will be different...yet the same. As it is all yoga but just different ways to approach a yoga class.

Q. I am interested in a yoga teacher training program but I do not want to approach yoga from a spiritual standpoint. I do it for the relaxation and stress reduction. Can you talk a bit about your approach in this regard?

We approach our YTT from a therapeutic perspective or from a physical perspective. Our backgrounds in Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Osteopathy and Kinesiology reflect this approach. You will find our physical approach to be approachable and concrete. We do incorporate daily meditation sessions - usually for 10 minutes at the beginning of each day - to help to ground us and bring us on the same level energetically. It is a helpful technique to bring focus and stability to all involved. Our Yoga teacher training and classes focus on strengthening and stretching and coordination of breath and movement. Definitely stress reduction, relaxation and health are our main objectives during class instruction.

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Q. Can you tell me a bit about the structure of your YTT 200? How many students there are?

The structure is one weekend a month we have 18 hours of training. The weekend is a combination of many topics including:

1. daily yoga classes,2. posture clinic (what to look for in poses, how to teach poses and also how to physically assist them), you learn tricks and tips for teaching people with certain physical limitations and we learn to use props to improve alignment and deepen the pose or in some cases to allow the pose to be more available.3. practice teaching4. anatomy lectures and application5. presentation of the chakras, nadis, limbs of yoga and other yoga philosophy6. discussion groups on above topics

We take a maximum of 20 students in our YTT. We have an excellent teacher to student ratio.

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Q. What does maintaining a YTT certification entail?

Maintaining a YTT certificate requires nothing. Staying as a well informed quality teacher does. To stay competitive in the yoga teacher world you can continue taking classes and workshops. You can continue training at the YTT 500 hour level. This qualifies people to be a "professional level" yoga teacher which is far above the industry standard of 200 hours.

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Q. I will need to miss one full weekend during the 200 hour training. What do I do?

Ideally you will not miss any of the program but if you do...you will need to make up the hours and the content.

The options are as follows:First of all you need to make up the content missed. You will need to connect with and share information with another participant that will be attending. If you have any questions about that content, you can contact Mike or Maxine. You will also need to make up the hours. If you miss 4 or fewer hours you can make up the time by attending classes with TAYS' senior teachers. If you miss up to 18 hours you will need to make up these hours at a workshop or YTT 500 hour course** offered by one of TAYS' senior teachers. If you miss more than 18 hours these additonal hours will need to be made up in a future program where the same missed information will be offered (i.e., a future YTT 200 hour weekend).